Murder, Mystery & Makeup - The Chilling Confessions of Serial Killer Mack Ray Edwards (Podcast Exclusive)

Episode Date: November 19, 2024

Hi friends, happy Tuesday! Some stories are almost too gruesome to even retell... Enter Mack Ray Edwards, a known kidnapper, murderer, and worse. Mack was believed to have murdered at six children in Los Angeles County between 1953 and 1970--and some think he didn't stop there. Also, let me know who you want me to talk about next time. Hope you have a great rest of your week, make good choices and I'll be seeing you very soon xo Bailey Sarian _________ :  :    F O L L O W    M E     :  : Discord:  https://discord.com/invite/BaileySarian Tik Tok: https://bit.ly/3e3jL9v Instagram: http://bit.ly/2nbO4PR Facebook: http://bit.ly/2mdZtK6 Twitter: http://bit.ly/2yT4BLV Pinterest: http://bit.ly/2mVpXnY Youtube: http://bit.ly/1HGw3Og Snapchat: https://bit.ly/3cC0V9d RECOMMEND A STORY HERE : [e-mail]  Business Related Emails : [e-mail] Wanna Send Me Something? Bailey Sarian 4400 W Riverside Dr Ste 110-300, Burbank, CA 91505 Download the Ibotta app now and use code MAKEUP to get 100% cash back on your Thanksgiving feast starting November first! Just go to the App Store or Google Play store and download the FREE Ibotta app and use code MAKEUP.  Gift your man with the ultimate grooming experience by MANSCAPED® and get him The Chairman Pro Package for the holidays. Get 20 percent off + free shipping with the code MAKEUP at https://www.Manscaped.com.  Head over to https://www.MASTERCLASS.com/MAKEUP for up to 50 percent off.

Hi friends, how are you today? My name is Bailey Sarian and I'd like to welcome you to the Murder, Mystery, and Makeup podcast. Today is exciting because today's episode is a podcast exclusive. Oh yeah, just for you. Today we're talking about Mac Ray Edwards. Yeah, have you heard of him? Well, let me tell you, usually serial killers don't just like walk into a police station and turn themselves in, you know? Normally there's a thorough investigation before police even have a clue as to who might be behind some of these grisly deaths

and disappearances. The cops never get that lucky, right? Not usually. But there was nothing usual about the case of mac ray edwards a serial child molester and murderer who lived in southern california for most of the 1950s and 60s and yes this is a side note today's story does involve children so i just wanted to give you a little disclaimer there see the police were investigating multiple child disappearances that would ultimately be linked to Mac. But they had no idea who he was throughout his 16-year career or that all these missing kids were connected to the same guy.

They just knew that an awful lot of children were going missing every summer. And they all seemed to fit a similar profile. Even if they did know these disappearances were connected to one person, they didn't have anything to go on. It was like, they just had a vague description of a man with dirty blonde hair. Could you imagine? That's the description. Like, okay, great. That really narrows it down. Thank you. So how'd they catch him? Well, it's like I said, Mack Ray Edwards came to them. On March 6, 1970, at 10.30 a.m., a 51-year-old pretty shabby-looking man came into the Foothill Division offices of the Los Angeles Police Department.

He walked right up to the counter and told the officer on duty that he wanted to speak to someone about a crime he knew was going on. He said his name was Mack Ray Edwards, and then he handed over a loaded pistol. Minutes later, Mack confessed to the murders and molestations of six children over the course of 16 years in Southern California, all of whom were very young, all of whom had vanished without a trace, and all of whom he was admitting to having killed. Now, a confession that big, they couldn't just take it at face value. But as it turns out, he had more to say. Not only had he kidnapped and killed six children. He kidnapped three more that very morning. So he killed that very morning. And here he was at the police station spilling his guts.

Why? Well, he claimed that he had enough of the guilt and he wanted to die for his crimes. The end. I'm just kidding. But it's kind of nice that like a killer like came forward. And is it nice, Bailey? Well, I'm just like, But it's kind of nice that like a killer like came forward. And um, is it nice Bailey? I'm just like, wow, at least he like came forward and ended it before he did more damage. I'm always trying to find like a bright side. And I don't know why. Well,

I have to in these stories. I have severe PTSD. Okay, so now the police have to kind of like work backwards, right? They got a confession before they have the crimes. So they arrest him and then they began an investigation looking into every aspect of his confession, which Mack openly helped with. Now, normally when I tell these stories, you know, I love a backstory. I like to give a backstory, right? Always. But with Mack Ray Edwards, there really isn't much known about this guy. He was practically unknown before he arrived at the station that day, which is scary. Here's what we do know. We know that he married a woman named Mary Howell in 1946 in Arkansas.

Then they moved out to Los Angeles where they adopted two children. Now, the only time he's ever been kind of like in trouble for something was in 1941 in Los Angeles where they adopted two children. Now the only time he's ever been kind of like in trouble for something was in 1941 in Los Angeles. He was arrested for vagrancy. I know you're probably thinking what is vagrancy or maybe you're not because you're like aware of everything and I love that for you but I was like what is vagrancy? Well vagrancy is the act of wandering without a home, job, or means of support. These laws often criminalized being poor, idle, or drunk. And, you know, prevented people from loitering. Yeah, that's what vagrancy is.

So essentially he was homeless and that's why he got in trouble. Beyond that, he was a worker for the California Department of Transportation. Specifically, he operated heavy machinery like bulldozers and, you know, other stuff, and he worked on like expanding many of Los Angeles's freeway systems. He was described as being a very average looking guy, a guy no one would like really look twice at if you saw him working on a construction yard. Very blue color. He blended into the background of daily life perfectly. He was forgettable. What few records exist of him all point to him being a friendly face in his neighborhood. A trusted face you can even say. And knowing what we know now would have been a great advantage to him

because most of his victims were people that he knew, neighbors, friends of friends, family even. And not once did anyone suspect him until he came forward. So let's go through everything we know he told the police and see what it was that Mack Ray Edwards wanted so badly to confess. We'll start in order with his first victim, a little girl named Stella, who was living with her parents in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Compton back in the 1950s.

Her mother and father both worked full time, all the time. Weekdays, weekends, they worked so they could afford their home. Stella was a darling. There's this newspaper article from 1953 that's about the search for Stella after her parents reported her missing. They were both interviewed in the article so we can actually like go back and hear what happened straight from them. According to the article when she she wasn't in school, Stella came with her mom to the hot dog stand where she worked and played with some of the other kids who also hung around the shopping center. Stella got to be pretty familiar with her mom's work and the usual customers who

were all smitten with the girl's bright smile and eyes. Now for only eight years old, Stella was remarkably well-behaved and independent. According to her mother, Stella would check in with her every 30 minutes while she worked the stand. And like clockwork, Stella was never late. So on Saturday, June 23rd, 1953, Stella's mom was working the stand, like usual. It was the middle of summer, so the sun is, like, taking its sweet time coming down. And, you know know her mom was like nearing the end of her shift and I guess Stella was nearby playing. It was around 8 15 p.m when Stella had come by the stand and like checked in with her mom before going back out with her

friends. The security guard on duty who said that he saw the kids playing at 8.30 p.m., but he also said that he saw a tall white man who looked to be in his 40s. He was standing around with the kids, but the next time the security guard looked back at the group, Stella and the man were gone. At 8.45 p.m., Stella missed her check-in with her mother. Now, she knew something was wrong the moment Stella didn't show up. Now, this was unlike Stella. Like, yeah, she was a very kind kid, but she wouldn't just leave. You know, this was very unlike her. Well, her disappearance didn't go unnoticed.

After Stella vanished, another article said that the police conducted a wide search of the area the very next day with hundreds of deputies and volunteers combing the streets, alleys, and buildings around the shopping center her parents worked at for any sign of her. It was said that the police were receiving 10 phone calls an hour about Stella that weekend, all about girls that matched Stella's description, but yet like it never panned out. Even with all this effort, Stella was never found. Just like that, almost in the blink of an eye, she was gone. It's every parent's worst nightmare. And for Mac Ray Edwards, it was only the beginning.

Fast forward to August 5th, 1956. On that morning in Azusa, California, it's like another neighborhood in the greater Los Angeles area, two children went out for a bike ride. One of them was a boy named Don Baker, who was 13, and the other was Brenda Howell, a little girl who was 11. Again, it was the middle of summer and Brenda was on vacation visiting her older sister who had just gotten married. Well, across from Brenda's sister's house was Dawn's house. And it was said that the two kids got along just swell, right off the bat.

So the two of them tell their parents that they're gonna go on a bike ride together to Morris Dam, which is on the San Gabriel River and would have been 42 minutes from their house via bike ride. And they told their parents that they would be back in two hours. So they'd have about 30 minutes to play and then they'd have to ride back if they wanted to be home on time. Only trouble was, they weren't home on time. In fact, they never came home at all.

Brenda's sister said that she first noticed they were missing that evening. So she called the police and they launched a wide area search for Dawn and Brenda that began the same night, just like they'd done for Stella. Deputies and volunteers had to climb through the Forest Canyon area and search the edges of the dam's water. I mean, they even got a diver to search the bottom of the lake bed, but like nothing turned up. The only traces of either of them were Brenda's bike and Dawn's jacket. So there were numerous reports coming out. There were people saying that they saw them out and about, and I guess at first, the detectives were under the impression that Brenda and Don actually just

ran away together. That's kind of what they thought at first. Even if all of these sightings were not them, it made sense to most people that they just left together, which is weird. They were kids, so I don't know why everyone just settled on this, you know, but that's what they settled on and it's literally how the case would remain all the way up until Mac's confession. Super weird. It's just weird. Last little detail, but around this time, another kid named Timmy Bowman went missing

in the same area that Brenda and Don did. Now Mac didn't confess anything about Timmy to the police. So I'm not gonna talk about Timmy just yet, but just keep it in mind. Brenda and Don were far from like the only kids being taken or killed in Southern California at this time. According to Mac, he took a 12 year break between kidnapping Don and Brenda and his next victim.

According to his confession, he'd been watching the home of Mr. and Mrs. Rocha, a family living with their children in Granada Hills up near a golf course. Ooh, kind of fancy area. Mac had been watching them and their house for a while, biding his time, waiting for a chance to kidnap Michelle Rocha, the couple's 12-year-old daughter. So he's like scoping out this house. He's watching this little girl. Michelle's mother worked at Sears during the week and her father worked out at sea. So the house was empty most of the time when the kids were at school and the parents were at work. So Mac knew he could use this to his advantage.

He watched the house until he knew the family patterns well enough to know when he could slip inside unnoticed and wait for Michelle to come home from school. Then he could simply grab her and leave. And that's exactly what he tried to do on November 26, 1968. My birthday's on November 26. Okay, Bailey. Great. I know. I'm sorry. It's just always weird when you see that, right? I don't know. Anyways, moving on. November 26, 1968. So he's waiting for her. And this day, Michelle didn't come home. Yeah. Huge twist. This was not according to schedule. Okay. But I guess she had went to a friend's house that day and she never got to the house where Mac was waiting for her. Oh my God, scary.

So while Mac was hidden away inside, it wasn't actually Michelle who made it home first like he was expecting. Instead, it was Gary Rocha, her 16-year-old brother. At about 3.30 p.m., Gary's friends dropped him off at his house. We don't know exactly what happened, but after Gary went inside, Mac claims he was confused and surprised. He hadn't expected to see a 16-year-old boy instead of a 12-year-old girl, and I guess he just panicked.

In the confusion, likely scared of being identified by Gary, he shot the teenager at least once in the back and once in the head, killing him. Oh my god. He didn't even take Gary's body anywhere either. He left his poor body in the master bedroom where he was found by his mother and sister. That's so sad. Gary had worked part-time at a local restaurant. He was known for being like helpful at school and he was well-liked by his entire community.

I mean, no one could explain why anyone would target him. So the theory at the time was that it was a burglary gone wrong. Like Gary had come home while people were robbing the house and then they killed him, right? I mean, that's what they were going with. But when they look at the house, I mean, nothing was stolen. So the police were stumped. Of course, now we know it was Mac, but at the time, this case wouldn't have even been in any way related

to Mac. So police were stumped. If Mac hadn't confessed to it, it probably would never have been solved. There were two other disappearances Mack confessed to, one in 1968 and one in 1969. The first was out of Roger Madison, who disappeared from his home on December 16th, 1968. Roger was 15 at the time, and he was last seen arguing with his father at home. As the argument ended, Roger left the house on his motorcycle and never came back. We don't really know anything about how Mac got to him or where he found him, but Mac did tell police that he lured Roger to an orange tree grove and stabbed him there. Jeez.

In fact, prior to Mac's confession, and much like the police had thought with Brenda and Don, the investigation into Roger's disappearance, they just honestly thought that he ran away from home. That's it, period. Which brings us to Donald Todd, the last victim Mac got away with. On Saturday, May 17th, 1969, Donald Todd, a 13-year-old high school student living in Sylmar, went missing after he told his mother he was going to mow someone's lawn to earn five dollars. When Donald never came home, his mother called the police. A search was organized, but the very next Sunday, a group of kids were out looking for snakes by a freeway. Oh my God, I hate that. When instead, they found the remains of a small boy.

It was Donald, who looked like he'd been shot and was missing some of his clothes. I hate the idea of like searching for snakes. Oh my God. But then finding like a body. Oh my God, that must have been awful. Which brings us back to 1970 the year mac turns himself in once he's finished telling the police all this they asked him why he was confessing you know like why or why are you telling us this he said he was like wracked with guilt and just so burdened by it

i don't know i think maybe he had a serious problem because like he was still almost killing up until the moment he walked through the police station doors. Yeah, because literally Mac confessed to attempting to do the same thing he just described to police earlier that day. Okay. Okay. So earlier that day, it was like five in the morning, right? Mac was working with a 15 year old-old accomplice. I know, what? There's a lot of mysteries in this story, okay? But they broke into a house that was owned by Edgar Cohen and his wife, and they had three daughters. Edgar and his wife had jobs, and they left early in the morning, usually by 5 a.m. Mac had been watching this home and waiting for the kids to be alone, but this time it actually worked. He and his 15-year-old accomplice, who is never named in

any of the stories about this, were able to get inside and kidnap all three of the Cohen's children. Yeah, all three of them, okay. Valerie, who was 12 at the time, Cindy, who was 13, and Jan, who was 14. Then the two of them stuffed the girls into a car and drove them out to a remote area. Well, they get to this remote area, and I don't know like how, what, when, where, why, but Mac and this accomplice were trying to force the girls down into a storm drain

when two of the girls were able to get free. So they get free and they immediately take off, right? And they run off. And once they got away, I guess Mac knew he was booked. Mac knew he was booked because Mac actually knew the Coens. He was their neighbor. So to him, now that they got away, it was only a matter of time before they identified Mac to the police. He told the girl he still had captive to stay put and he told the police where she was. Then he took a sidekick with him down to the Foothill Police Station and they turned themselves in. Yeah, that's what he was up to just minutes before walking through those doors. That's probably why they don't name the accomplice because the accomplice is underage and most likely was a victim of Mac's. So I, maybe Mac confessed because everything was just weighing on him,

or maybe he confessed because he knew he was about to get caught. He was tired. I don't know. As a part of his confession, Mac told the police where to find the Cohen girls, and all of them got home safely. I know, thank goodness for that. That's everything Mac told the police when he first showed up at the station from the beginning of the story, or at least as far as we can tell. The police never released the full details of his confession and he never signed any official statements about what he did.

This is all from like newspaper articles written at the time with direct interviews with people who investigated him and spoke to him. I actually thought about reaching out to the LAPD to see if they still had anything from this case in their huge archive, you know? But an author, Weston DeWalt, beat us to it like a decade and a half ago.

He found out most of the files relating to these missing kids from back then are long gone. Apparently they have a policy of destroying the files on missing children after what would be those children's 18th birthdays. Mack was mostly very cooperative with police, but they were convinced that Mack wasn't giving them the, you know, the full story. It's not every day a murderer just walks out from beyond the tree line and outs himself to police, you know? If he was just

casually dropping the details on six murders, what else did he know that he wasn't sharing? At one point, the police even suspected him of 22 different killings. So they had a confession from Mack, but what they really were looking for was some kind of proof. This would really seal the deal, you know? So Mac connected some dots for police. Remember Stella Nolan, his first victim? Mac confirmed to the police that a child's body that had been found under the Santa Ana freeway in 1969 was actually hers. He knew because he put it there when the freeway was being built. Because remember he was a Caltrans worker. He was building freeways in the 50s. So he was hiding bodies.

Because he was a Caltrans worker building freeways in the 50s, I mean, he had access to multiple highly secure and difficult to search construction yards. So he could easily just like dump a body, hide a body, and it would get paved over. You know? Scary. Unfortunately, Mac never signed a formal version of his interview or anything like that,

and the police never released the full details of his confession. Well, remember Brenda Howell, the little girl who disappeared with Dawn on her bicycle? It's since been connected that she was Mac's sister-in-law. Mac also lived only a few houses down from where Roger Madison lived, the kid who suddenly vanished on his motorcycle one night. Mac's son even went to school with Roger. I know, Mac had a son, yeah. Remember Gary Rocha?

The guy that he shot? I mean, Mac like lived 10 minutes from him. He was just down the street. And then he was neighbors with the Cohens. What I'm getting at is that all of his victims seem to be connected to him by more than just their kidnappings. Then there's cases like Tommy Bowman. I mentioned him in the beginning and I said forget him but he was a kid that went missing right around the time that Brenda and Don went missing. Now Mac Mack did not admit that he was involved with Tommy's disappearance to the police,

but a few years ago, back in 2008, I mean, it feels like a few years ago, but that was kind of a while ago, but back in 2008, that same author who went to the LAPD archives, Weston DeWalt, he was investigating a different story when he came across a police sketch that was used to identify the suspect in Tommy's disappearance. Weston was familiar with Mac's story and well, you know, he thought the sketch looked kind of familiar. So Weston dug a

little deeper. He got in touch with LAPD detective Vivian Flores and the two of them uncovered a letter Mac had written to his wife Mary from prison. It said a bunch of stuff but the main takeaway was a sentence that read quote I was going to add one more and that was the Tommy Bowman boy that disappeared in Pasadena but I felt I would really make a mess of that one. So I left him out, end quote. So, I mean, to many, this was like Mack admitting to the murder of Tommy Bowman, right? He never really said it, but I mean, obviously he's kind of saying something. Well, I guess we're never going to get answers though, huh? Well, there's at least two or three more children that the police suspected Mack was involved with, including a girl named Ramona Price, who went missing near the 101 freeway in 1961

along a specific stretch of it that Mack had worked on at the time. Now, apparently, police even sent dogs to that area that are like trained to sniff out human remains. I mean, they can smell it even if the human remains are like buried deep underground. When they brought the dogs to where construction would have been happening back in the 60s, all four of the dogs identified the same location as potentially having a body buried underneath. But they never like dug it up

or like searched if there was remains underneath. It's like they did all this work. They brought out these dogs and the dogs are going off. But then they didn't do the extra work to like dig it up. Probably because it's like the 101 freeway and that's a major freeway. And they're like, oh, it's going to take a lot of work. And it'd be an inconvenience. It's probably going to cost a lot.

So we'll just move on. That's my assumption. So I mean, we may never know the truth about where some of these children actually are. They probably all up in that freeway where he was working. Oh, that's scary. All right. So after his confession was all recorded and police were able to verify some of his claims, Mack was charged with three counts of kidnapping and three counts of murder. Why not six for the whole six that he confessed to? Well, the police couldn't prove them all. The kidnapping charges all came from the Coen sisters

and each of the murder charges were for the deaths of Gary Rocha, Donald Todd, and his first victim, little Stella Nolan. By the time this news was made public, Stella's mother had passed away. Sadly, she never knew what happened to her daughter. During the trial, Mack begged for the death penalty. When he was asked why he came forward with his confession, he told the jury, quote, I couldn't eat and I couldn't sleep. It was beginning to affect my work. I am a heavy equipment operator.

I might wreck it or turn it over and hurt someone, end quote. Yeah, sure. I'm sure he just wanted to get the death penalty because we all know what happens, well maybe not, but we all know what happens to people who mess with children in prison. You don't get treated nicely as you shouldn't. Sorry. Anyway, despite an argument from his lawyer that he shouldn't be put to death, Mack was happy to receive the death penalty he asked for when he was found guilty. He said, quote, My attorney got a bit mixed up and pleaded for my life. That's not what I want.

I want the chair. That's what I've always wanted. End quote. I wish he sat in prison because he would have just gotten wrecked as he deserves. But apparently the chair couldn't come fast enough for Mack. Well, he was actually sentenced to die in a gas chamber, but he never got around to it. For a quick timeline, Mack turned himself in on March 6, 1970. His trial concluded a week and a half later on the 17th, and then he was sentenced to death on June 5th, 1970. But a year later, Mack was still awaiting execution at San Quentin.

Now, being dead and being sentenced to death are two different things, and Mack wanted to be dead. You know, actually dead. So after two previous suicide attempts, it wasn't the biggest surprise when on October 30th, 1971, Mack was found hanging in his cell, strung up by the power cable from his television set. He was 53 years old. What a little bitch. What a bitch move. I hate this guy. I hope he had a miserable time in prison. There's 515 miles of freeway in Los Angeles County and Mack worked beyond that in places like Ventura County too for over a decade. So who knows how many skeletons this city keeps buried underground. And that my friends is the story of mac ray edwards not very clear right a very mysterious guy who did a lot of of of awful things but like not a lot of information about him i think he

killed a lot more and i think he probably buried them in the freeways i mean what a not to say like a smart plan but like if you're a killer i I, you know, do you know what I'm saying? I don't want to say it, but I mean like that's like, yeah, I just think he probably killed a lot more and he's a piece of shit. All right, so great. Now what do we do? I think we should go for a walk. Let's go for a walk. Let's get some fresh air. Let's shake this one off and recoup, huh? I appreciate you so much for hanging out with me today. I hope you have a good rest of your day. Please be safe out there.

Please be safe out there. Make good choices, okay? And I will be seeing you guys later. Goodbye.